Yu-Gi-Oh Card Review: Trishula of the Ice Barrier

With Hidden Arsenal 4 coming to the TCG in about a month, players are looking forward to one of the, if not the, most powerful synchro monsters ever created. It will literally change the game as we know it (Why do Ice Barriers get all the best synchros??)

Anyway, todays card is the almighty Trishula of the Ice Barrier

Scoop.

This level 9 synchro monster has 2700 attack and 2000 defence. Thats not great for a level 9, but this card requires a generic tuner and generic non-tuners so theres no real problem about that. Its a water type, which follows suit with all of the Ice Barrier monsters. The real problem with this card is its badass broken effect:

When this card is Synchro summoned, you can remove from play one card from your opponent's field, hand and graveyard (The card in hand is chosen at random).

There are many cards that remove stuff. Caius removes, Chaos Sorcerer removes, Bottomless removes etc etc. But this card is broken simply because there is no meta deck that is safe from its effect. No deck likes to have the cards in their hand removed, so thats painful enough already. But wait, a card in your graveyard is going too. That could be your precious Vayu or Necro Guardna or the 3rd dark in the grave you needed to summon dark armed dragon. Then it removes a threat from the field.

This card is one of those cards that requires next to no strategy to use at all. since you -2 upon summon and then remove 3 cards, its a +1 overall.

I really hope this card gets limited/banned soon. Some decks can synchro spam this card multiple times, making that 2700 attack painful. Usually a powerful card has its base attack reduced to compensate for the effect, like Mist Wurm or Stardust Dragon. But this card is just a badass that everyone will learn to hate very quickly.

This card can be stopped by Solemn Warning or Divine Wrath. With Divine Wrath, discarding a card is a small price to pay to stop trishula's potent/broke effect. Konami released an anti-trishula card in Starstrike Blast called Mirror of the Ice Barrier, but it really does not do enough and the player summoning trishula can easily choose not to remove anything.

This card is also broken because even if it gets summoned onto an empty field, it hurts you. If you play decks that like to remove from play cards, then trishula is not so bad.

Upon release, this card will be at three. That means many decks (Fish decks and Debris plants) will break this card and summon 3 on the field on the first turn if they can. Hopefully Konami will come to their senses and limit this beast.